She paced thus, saying nothing, gathering her panicking thoughts, for the duration of several long breaths. And then, just as suddenly, she stopped.
“Behold!” she exclaimed, her hand still upraised, so that both the lords stared at it in expectation.
But Annaelit lowered her hand, and was pacing once again, her jewelry tinkling softly, and her veils fluttering.
What in the world is happening to me?
Lord Dava was by then feeling quite fermented himself, and the moving form of the storyteller tripled in his vision. Lord Ostavi was not too far behind, and was seeing at least two quickly pacing Annaelits dressed in caftans of jade silk.
“Behold a form more radiant than the desert sun at high noon!” said Annaelit at last. Lord Ostavi blinked, then squinted, saying, “I see it. . . .”
“Yes!” exclaimed Lord Dava. “Go on. . . .”
“Behold gleaming satin hair like a waterfall, a deep sienna color that pours like liquid bronze and yet is wafted by the perfumed wind of your gardens!”
“Oh, yes!”
“Behold skin soft to the touch and delicate as the ripest peach, and great slobbering lips tender like the succulent cherry fruit, dripping liquid juices . . .”
“Ah!” moaned Lord Dava. “Yes, go on, for that is she!”
“Actually,” said Annaelit, bringing her voice down to a normal volume and smoothly covering the fact that only moments ago she had had no idea what she was saying and why she was saying it, “I am describing her mare—definitely slobbering after it had been watered from a pail. I must add, the poor thing was tired and its beauty somewhat marred by a ride through the markets—I haven’t even begun to describe its mistress yet.”
Lord Ostavi’s eyes bulged a little, and then he let go a loud belch. “The mare . . .” he said.
“I must see this marvel of a mare sometime. Really, I say—”
“Really, you must,” said Annaelit, feeling oddly lightheaded herself and aware that she was babbling. “Now then, as I was saying—”
“No, no, no, wait!” said Lord Dava. He clumsily shifted his weight on the pillows in an attempt to rise, but instead ended up toppling down even lower in the soft mountain. Two of the smallest pillows propping up his elbow slipped out from underneath him and went flying like projectile weapons to hit two nearby servants smack in the face and on the chin respectively.
“What exactly did you mean, Lord Ostavi, by referring to the lovely Makeia as a mare? I do not like that at all, you know.”
“What?” said Lord Ostavi. “What was that again?”
“My lords,” began Annaelit, feeling the subtle flavor of confusion grow stronger, and herself losing the last bits of cohesion, “I think at this point a small period of rest for both of you may be the best thing, while I continue this storytelling session another time—”
“No!” Lord Dava let out a drunken roar. “I want an explanation! That is, I want to hear what this lord here who has been my dearest host, up to this moment, this lord—lord—”
“Lord Ostavi . . .” said Annaelit.
“Yes, Lord Ostavi—I want him to tell me what he meant to imply about Makeia’s mare-like condition? Or was it her appearance?”
As Lord Dava spoke, Lord Ostavi’s own wine-flushed face began to turn an even deeper shade of purple.
“My dearest Lord Dava!” he roared back. “If you were not my guest, I would tell you without wasting another moment that I have no idea what you’re talking about since you are absolutely as drunk as a goat! But, since you are my guest, I must control my tongue. And thus I inform you with loving gentleness that suddenly the hour grows late, and it is time for us to retire to our sleeping chambers, and continue this feast in the morning!”
“A very wise decision, my Lord,” whispered Annaelit. “And I promise to continue my story another day.”
Lord Dava’s jaw dropped. “Drunk?” he said, staring like a madman at his host. “Drunk?
Did you just call me a drunken goat, my dearest Lord Ostavi? Because, if you did, I am afraid I am going to take great offense right now. Yes! By gods, I am offended to the point of wanting to take you outside and give you a lesson in hospitality myself, upon your donkey, I mean upon your—”
The roar that came from Lord Ostavi was truly terrifying. “Out!” he screamed, while the food servants and dancing girls in the hall began to scatter in panic. “Take this son of a braying ass out! Now, before I kill him with my own three—I mean two—hands! Gods hear me, I will not commit guesticide!”
Annaelit stood in the middle, her hands shaking, memories of former storytelling sessions passing before her eyes. She watched as Lord Dava, struggling only slightly, and mostly grabbing everyone around him—both male and female—in inappropriate places, was carried out of the hall by three of Lord Ostavi’s guards, and two of his own bodyguards. “I am going to kill you, Ostavi!” he bellowed from the doorway. “After I move out of your house tomorrow, and you are no longer my host, you immediately become a dead son of a whoring sheep! And there is no such word as ‘guesticide’!”
When the feast hall was cleared of Lord Dava and most of the servants, Lord Ostavi collapsed. He lay back upon his tousled mountain of pillows and groaned, holding his head and muttering to himself, oblivious of everything. “It’s too bright in here!” he moaned. “Someone close the curtains. Or remove the sun. Yes, right there, please. Yes. . . .”
Annaelit bit her lips and, breathing as lightly as she hoped would make her invisible, started to tiptoe out of the great hall. She moved past one or two nonchalant servants who were picking up dropped platters and mopping up spilled wine with washcloths, while others went around extinguishing oil lamps. Just as she reached the exit she heard a snore coming from the venerable host’s direction.
Outside the Palace, the darkness was chill and oil lamps burned brightly within delicate spheres of colored glass to illuminate the mirror waters of the fountain reservoirs, the fountains themselves having been stilled for the night.
Annaelit stood with her shawl once again wrapped around her, her mind in turmoil. What in the name of all the gods had happened? She had come here to tell a story, but instead her words had inadvertently caused an idiot drunken fight between two powerful lords about to seal a trade agreement. Indeed, this was an insult to her fine skill! For Annaelit was known to soothe with her words, to create harmonious wonder, to smooth out bitterness from the brows of angry men.
What had come to pass?
She hurriedly began to walk past the gardens toward the outside walls. Their priceless rose granite appeared gray, as do all things in the night. In angry silence she berated herself and examined her behavior and words from all sides.
And then one of her sides began literally to itch, and she scratched herself angrily and continued walking. A couple of steps later, something definitely bit her on her neck, then her lower back, and she scratched herself again, thinking that the Palace might have looked magnificent but must have been filthy with fleas.
And, as soon as she'd thought that she felt two more bites, on her arm and on her lower calf. And then a third one happened smack in the middle of her behind.
She heard a distinct sound of soft laughter.
In the darkness, Annaelit stopped.
Keep walking, mortal, said a voice in the night, in her head. Just a little more, and you will be outside the walls.
Annaelit felt the fine hairs on her arms beginning to stand up, and her eyes were open so wide that they hurt.
Nevertheless, she resumed walking.
As she passed the sleepy guards at the gate, who gave her bored glances, she felt another bite behind her ear, and the voice again spoke, Now turn to your right, woman, just as you leave the gate.
“I don’t know who or what you are,” muttered Annaelit under her breath as she turned the corner. “But I am not what you think, I promise you that . . . .”
“And what are you?” said a man-shape in a dark cloak of night, catc
hing her as she ran directly into his chest.
He smelled of the final blooming lilac and night dew and the raw wind.
“Aieee!” screamed Annaelit lightly, then put her hands forward against his chest and felt something give way before her, a resilient energy in the air made into solid matter. He was warm to the touch, like an ordinary man, and yet Annaelit felt that she was in physical contact with someone or something more.
“What am I? I am a simple storyteller, poor and useless despite my fake jewels, and without a single coin on me. And who are you?” she babbled, continuing the pretense of relative normalcy more for her own sake and taking a step back from this odd embrace with electricity.
“Who do you think?” he replied, his mortal voice low and soothing and, surprisingly, very much like her own when she was telling a mesmerizing story. The night was moonless and dark, and she could not see his face, only a silhouette against distant lamplight.
“I am not afraid,” she said. “Really, I am not. Which of the gods are you?”
She sensed him smile, like a warm fluctuation in the air, in her very mind. Think, he spoke to her awareness, Think, storyteller. I am the one you most often mock. And then, in the ordinary voice of a man, he said, “You know me as the god of Things Left Over, because you choose to think that there are things in this world that are superfluous. And thus you delegate them all to me, like your trash.”
And again he laughed. Currents of subliminal power moved in the darkness about him, and once again her hair stood on end.
“Pokreh . . .” she whispered. “You are Pokreh! Otherwise known as—”
“Otherwise known as the puny god of something or other, and in your own words a wicked, puny, sarcastic minor god.”
“Oh!” said Annaelit. “My own words? How did you know?”
“Come along, walk with me,” said he, taking her trembling hand, and once again she felt the touch of something warm, strong, and yet electric.
They moved past the Palace walls, and down toward the thicket of the city. Annaelit did not dare turn her face to look at the tall being gliding like a shadow at her side.
“Where are we going?” she whispered, staring ahead of her.
“Where would we be going at this hour? Home, of course. You need to get some sleep before tomorrow. Because tomorrow things will really begin to happen.”
“What?” said Annaelit. “What things? What have I done, Pokreh? And I am sorry with all my heart for telling the stories about you. I promise I will never tell them again—”
“Nonsense,” he said. “Those are your favorite stories, and you cannot help telling them over and over. But you do not tell them the right way. Particularly the story about fleas.”
“‘The right way’? What do you mean? I regret sincerely that my words have offended you, but these are the stories as I know and understand them, the same stories that were told to me long ago. . . .”
“And that’s the problem,” he replied. “For the one who told them to you long ago did not understand them either. And now you do not properly understand them, at least not quite, and yet you continue to repeat them like a dumb thoughtless thing, and aggravate the falsehood.”
“My Lord Pokreh . . .” said Annaelit. “I am only a poor storyteller—”
In that instant she felt three simultaneous bites in three different places on her body, and she could not help but cry out.
If you were only a poor storyteller, spoke the god in her mind, do you think I would bother with you?
“You are simply the best teller of tales that has ever lived upon this mortal earth,” he replied in the same low measured voice, as though nothing had happened. “And for that reason the great responsibility to tell things as they are lies the strongest upon you. Your words have power. Look what happened earlier tonight, at the feast.”
“Do you mean to tell me,” she whispered, “that it was my fault I started to tell my lords that moronic rambling nonsense about the Princess Makeia’s mare? Whatever possessed me to do that? Not you?”
“Of course it was your fault,” he said. “I merely watched you lose control. Even now, it was you who called me here, because deep inside you firmly believe that, as the god of Things Left Over, I am the one to pick up the useless pieces, such as yourself.”
“What will happen tomorrow, my Lord?” she asked as they continued to walk along the winding silent streets of the city, past sleeping beggars and lurching silhouettes of strangers with obscured visages. In the faint illumination of the night, faces lost their three-dimensional humanity and dissolved into flat shapes of darkness broken only by eyes like spots of liquid. The eerie sight of them would normally have made Annaelit speed up her pace with barely suppressed panic. But tonight there was a god at her side, and she couldn't care less about stepping on a cutthroat in the dark.
“For one thing,” spoke the god, “you will no longer be able to tell certain types of tales. Nothing funny or sarcastic that requires complex interpretations of truth—try telling them and you will court disaster. Only the sad stories are left to you. The ones that are most simple and straightforward, and illustrate truth in a clear light.”
“Oh! What then will I do? I have another storytelling session tomorrow night! The Princess Egiras herself is not easily moved one way or another, but hates to hear her guests weep, and will require only lighthearted stories! Oh, what shall I do?”
Time seemed to fly by more quickly because her mind was embroiled in contemplating such terror, and Annaelit did not even notice that they had arrived at the doors of her hovel.
“What shall I do, Pokreh?” she repeated, releasing his divine hand to open the old rusty lock of her door with both of hers, rattling and pulling on it with great effort. Finally the door gave way, and she turned around to bemoan her condition one more time, and to invite him in. But there was no one there. Pokreh, the god of Things Left Over, was gone. . . . Only the night was left, pitch black as chaos.
The feasts at the House of the Princess Egiras were known for their extravagance and for things most unusual.
Egiras was exotic, beautiful as a panther, and had a particularly sharp tendency toward sarcasm. When she had first come to the city she had been received with disdain by the High Court. After all, she was an unknown, and her foreign homeland’s very existence was suspect, the stuff of vague legend. Besides, she had come with nothing but a small caravan and a retinue of servants, a box of priceless jewels, and the relentless escort of a single warrior bodyguard—he was a silent black man of imposingly noble stature, always seen at her side. But within a matter of days Egiras had bought some of the choicest land in the best part of the city, and with it a great villa.
And then she became their unspoken queen. For her demeanor was capricious divinity and her appearance a cold disdainful elegance, and her natural manner of snubbing the highest nobility caused them to be piqued by her out of perverse curiosity. Indeed, within a moon’s waning, she had the city nobles fighting for her attention and courting her favors. It was now considered a distinction to be invited to one of her exclusive feasts. Annaelit had been fortunate to have pleased Egiras often with her storytelling, and thus she was a frequent contributor to an evening’s entertainment.
Tonight was one such evening. Annaelit dressed particularly carefully, and applied her kohl and makeup with slightly trembling hands, all the while thinking of an appropriate story to tell the noble guests of Egiras.
She also thought of a certain minor, puny, sarcastic god.
Annaelit was admitted into the great House of the Princess soon after sunset, while the dusk was still ringing with the clamor of departing sun. Final dust motes of the sunset’s energy were spinning through the bluish translucent fabric of air. Indigo night intermingled and yet never blended with light particles of burnished gold.
The guests were gathered on a balcony to experience the final vestiges of this glorious sunset, the dancing energy all around them, and to drink warm summer wine. The v
illa balcony overlooked splendid gardens that in the evening appeared a sea of green moving limbs quickly turning to jet black.
“Look! I see the first star of the evening!” cried one of the guests, a young woman, pointing at the horizon. She was dressed in silk the color of lapis and wore her long ruddy hair unbound, so that it cascaded unadorned down her back. In her choice of coloration for the feast, the woman was like swatches of this very sunset and encroaching night.
“I see only a distant lamp being moved through the windows of a house,” retorted a low sarcastic female voice, with just a hint of amusement. “My dear Lady Makeia, it is far too early for proper stars to show themselves at the Western horizon. Indeed, it has just recovered from the day’s inferno, barely dispatched with the sun, and now lies simmering in cool soothing blueness. But—watch the opposite rim that is the East, if you would see stars.”
“Ah, Egiras, love, must you be so pragmatic?” Makeia laughed. “The stars come out everywhere, and I still insist that I saw the first one tonight.”
“Then I let you have the star of your choice, my dear,” retorted Egiras. “What do you say, Nadir?”
A little behind her, a tall man-shape stirred in the shadows of the balcony, and then a soft voice said, “It is as you wish, my Lady Egiras.” The tone of his voice was like deep balm. Egiras laughed, shaking it off, that eternal feel of comfort at her side, that eternal sense of his presence, as though it irritated her at some level. “Apparently it is always as I wish, for Nadir always agrees with me.” She added, “I need not even bother to ask. Don’t you, Nadir? See, there
—do not even reply, for I know what you will say.”
“How did you manage to get such a handsome warrior to serve you with such loyalty?” said Makeia, glancing coyly toward the man in the shadows. In the rich twilight she could not see him, and yet she knew there were muscles like iron and satin and a well formed face of surprising gentleness hidden somewhere in there, in the dark.
“Ah, that is a story I shall tell you properly some other day,” said the hostess. “But speaking of stories, where is my favorite Teller of Tales? Someone go fetch Annaelit, for it is time!”